Sideways From The Sun
by midnightluck
Summary: A normal encounter with a not-so-normal villain ends with the team thrown ninety degrees from reality, and into their own worst nightmares.
1. Wally versus Physics

__All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners (Cartoon Network, Simon R Green). For a prompt on YJ_Anon_Meme.__

* * *

><p>When she finds him, he's curled into a ball small as he can get. The mindscape is dim, a dark room she doesn't recognize. He's hiding in a corner.<p>

There's another man in the room, older, with brown hair and a mustache. He's moving, but ever so slowly. Time stretches out, one of the man's steps taking minutes. Except there's no time here.

She'll count in heartbeats, then.

"Wally?" she whispers, not wanting to startle him. "Kid Flash?"

He flinches. She covers the distance between them—one heartbeat, two—and gently touches his shoulder.

He makes a noise, like a choked sob.

"It's okay," she murmurs, settling herself on the ground, draped over his back. "It'll be okay."

He says "No, it won't," to his thighs. He lifts his head and rests his chin on his pulled-in knees. "No," he says more clearly. "It won't be okay."

He won't look at her, so she does him the courtesy of not trying to get him to. "It's simple theoretical physics," he says bitterly. "Uncle Barry's hit the right frequency to dimension-hop before. Do you know what'll happen if I don't—if I can't slow down?" Down goes his head again, and she strains to hear. "Molecules vibrate at speed creates friction makes energy that builds up and it's gotta go somewhere, and I don't wanna blow up, don't wanna die don't wanna take you take anyone with me don't wanna _leave_—"

And now she understands the molasses-moving man.

"Shhh," she soothes, and floats around to give him something to cling to. "See, you're fine. Listen—" and she has an idea. "Listen here. Hear my heartbeat?"

He sniffs, hangs his head closer, then freezes.

"It...It's normal," he says, wonder heavy in his voice. "It's at normal—I'm at normal speed!"

He's up and spinning her around before she can blink. His eyes are still red and puffy, but she laughs with him, and claps when he lets go.

It takes him a while to settle down. "What is this? Where are we?"

"A mindscape," she says. "He shoved out right out of reality and into our minds."

"How did he even...? I mean, who is this guy?"

She frowns. "I don't know, but I've never felt anything like him before. Robin started to say something about it, I think, but..." She made a gesture that Wally interpreted as "he got interrupted when we fell out of the real world and into our own."

"We should find him, then," he says, then stops. He shoots her a look. "Uh, about..."

"Our enemy has considerable mental manipulation skill," she saves him. "He's called up all our worst fears. So we should hurry up and find the others."

She doesn't add, _before they break._

And he shudders, because he's not all back together yet, no matter what he pretends. If this third teammate has also been an illusion, he just might have broken himself.

Wally takes a deep breath, and M'gann opens the door.

They step out, and fall. Wally feels hands under his armpits, and M'gann lifts them out of the hole and sets him gently down on his feet. He glances back at the pit behind him, and the door behind that.

There are walls to the left and to the right. There are stone walls, wood, walls, walls that aren't walls, and this one pink, fleshy bit, that almost seems to be breathing.

And in these walls, there are doors. So very many doors, black and brown and metal and crystal and bleeding and broken and shiny and alluring and one or two that slide away from the corner of his eyes, that may or may not actually be there.

"What is this?" he asks quietly. "Where are we?"

"It's the Place-Between," M'gann says, voice equally hushed. "I don't normally come here. But I can't fly through the aether and carry another person. Sorry."

Wally looks around and shivers. "The doors...?"

She nods. "Minds. The doors reflect the interior."

"I don't suppose you know what our teammates' doors look like?"

"I don't normally come here," she repeats, and looks around. Wally can sympathize with that. "But I can hear a sound, a voice, one that shouldn't be here...

"I don't like it," she whispers.

"Make you a deal," Wally says, faux-cheerful, and winces at how his voice echoes from stone to wood to glass, and on and on into the dark. "You point the way to the creepy voice and I'll open all the creepy doors."

So together they wander, M'gann looking beyond the world beyond, and Wally pausing a second at each door, waiting for a spark, a hint a clue that he knows the person behind the door. It doesn't come.

* * *

><p>...<p>

_To be continued_


	2. Dick versus Insanity

Finally, M'gann drifts to a stop in front of a, well, not a door. An ornate wrought iron gate, like the ones in front of old mansions. Only, despite the gaps in the metalwork, nothing can be seen of what's inside.

"It's coming from here," she says, and shakes herself out of it, eyes refocusing on the here-and-now.

Wally frowns at the gate, but he promised, so he lays a hand on it. Before he can touch it, a blue spark jumps from the gate to his hand, and it _knows_ him. He can feel the knowledge burrowing into his mind like a maggot.

He opens the gate. It swings inwards silently.

"I wonder who this is," M'gann says, just as Wally spots the rusted popcorn machine. There's some pretty scrollwork on the side that reads "Normality".

"This is a circus, or a fairground," Wally murmurs, and they look forward, at the graveyard of broken machinery. Lights twinkle in the distance. "Let's head that way?"

They pass a dead cotton candy machine that says, "Family". The pink sugar has melted all over it, almost like blood. Another booth that Wally doesn't recognize says "FEAR" in dark, gothic letters. Wally shudders and looks away.

They hear it before they see it. There's the roar of the crowd, and odd music, and the sounds of a summer's night, heavy on the air.

"Ladies and gentlemen~~" booms an unseen man, and the two unconsciously step closer together.

That's about when they see the big top. It's red and white, and much bigger than it should be. It's the center of this place they've come to, life radiating out from the epicenter of the nightmare.

"Pretty girl want some dreams?" a voice croaks and they jump. There's a...a not-a-person who's sneaked up on them. "Dreams, dreams, going cheap! Crunchy fresh, or slightly tarnished, or old ones shelved and lost and forgotten?"

Wally grabs her hand and tugs her along, laughter echoing behind them and in front of them, and they push through a crowd, who pick and pry and call and cry, and try to get their sticky skinny fingers on everything.

And then, a few feet from the tent, they break into a ring of nothing.

"I think we found Robin," M'gann says, looking around.

"I didn't know he ever had anything to do with a circus," Wally whispers.

M'gann shrugs. "What do we really know about Robin?" She looks around. "But this mindscape...it's so big."

"Are they normally smaller?"

Megan floats up in the air, so she can sit crosslegged and still be at Wally's eye level. "It depends. But the larger it is, the more organized it is. The more compartmentalized. It takes serious mental skill to fill a field."

She doesn't mention that her mindscape is Mars. The whole planet.

"Robin pushed me down," Wally suddenly remembers. "He protected me, a little. That's why mine wasn't as big or as bad as it could have been..." He shudders, thankful he was spared even that little bit, but the guilt over that relief slithered down his throat, settling into his stomach and churning.

Megan descends so they can wander closer, and there's a _thudsplatsquish_ sound. The crowd roars louder than ever, only to be drowned out by a scream.

Wally grabs M'gann's hand and pulls her along behind him, fast and faster. They break through the flaps, and nothing.

It's silent. The stands are full of crowds, but there's no noise, and there's nothing in the center ring. Then M'gann tugs his hand and says quietly, "Up there."

There's a man and a woman on the trapeze. They swing and let go and catch and are caught, and it's glorious. All of a sudden, the crowd's unmuted, and a young boy leaps from the platform to join the aerialists.

The man swings him out, and he tucks and turns and turns and turns and turns, before the woman catches him. She sets him down on the other platform, and flips out so the man can catch her. He does.

It all goes to hell with a quiet _snap._ They fall, in slow motion, horror on their faces, no net-

_thudsplatsquish_

"Oh," breathes M'gann, horrified.

And again it happens, faster: roar, scream, _thudsplatsquish_

And the crowd roars, and the kid screams. It's a dreadful sound, primal and hurt and torn from those parts of the soul which never quite learned what it is to be human.

_thudsplatsquish_

And then Batman's on the other platform, looking at the kid, now aged and garbed and so very Robin, and Batman says, "You've failed. Leave."

And the mask and cape disappear, just like that.

Robin falls because the platform's simply not there, and he falls onto an obscene caricature that's unrecognizable. And Robin punches him, and lands a kick, and hits him and hits him and hits him, until the thing isn't moving anymore.

He's crouched next to the body, and finally notices they're there. He looks up, eyes wide and grinning and wild and _mad,_ blood on his hands and his face and his soul.

"Oh," he says.

Suddenly everything's gone; the stands, the crowd, the corpse, and they're left in an empty big top. He's got his cape and mask back, and he looks around and says, "Mind trap, huh? Glad to see you guys got out."

And Wally has to shiver, because that's worse than what they just saw. That Robin can just dismiss that out of hand, accept it and move on, is just...scary.

The Batman may be insane, but Robin's just plain fucking psycho.

"Er," says Miss M, obviously just as thrown. "Yes. We. I figured it out, and. Uh, before...before this," she waves a hand to indicate _being shoved into our own worst nightmares_, and contines, "uh, you'd started to say something about the villain?"

"Yeah," he says, and flips into a handstand. "Dunno his name, but he's a Fae. Arrogant bastards, by all accounts. Original owners of the earth. They tried to fight humans, but we outbred them. So they walked sideways from the sun ages ago, determined to let us screw ourselves over." He's back upright again, and manifests himself some popcorn. "Mental powers like whoa. Strong like Superman. Never believe a word they say. Well, technically, they can't lie, so they've raised omission to an art form. Don't trust 'em, don't listen to 'em, _never_ bargain with 'em. Ever."

There's a moment of silence as the two try to adjust to that, and Robin munches on his popcorn. Suddenly, a large inflatable ball appears, and Robin bounces a bit before sitting on it.

"Fairies?" Wally says. "Really?"

"Leaving aside your disdain for magic, yes. Except evil, dangerous faeries that are the stuff of nightmares."

"Let's find the others," M'gann says determinedly.

"Sure," Robin says, and the ball and popcorn box disappear. He starts walking towards the tent's entrance.

Wally and Megan share a look behind his back, and then follow him.

"You guys okay?" he asks, glancing back. "I mean, I'm working on the theory that he threw us out of reality and into our worst fears."

"M'gann got me out of mine," Wally says, and they both turn to look at her.

"I, uh..." she starts. Stops, swallows. "In order to keep my mind in a state where I could help you guys, I had to defer my...experience."

"Okay," Robin says. "Thanks for doing that. So that leaves Artemis, Superboy, Kaldur, and you. Any hints on what might come up for you?"

She shivers a bit. "I, erm. Spiders."

A beat passes, and Wally says, "_Spiders_?"

Robin shoots him a dirty look and smacks the back of his head.

"No, I mean, spiders! They're very scary! I don't like spiders either!" he babbles.

M'gann looks away. "We have spiders on Mars. They're...terrifying."

No one knows quite what to say. Robin looks around at the corridors, and makes a _hmmm_ing noise.

M'gann furrows her brow, slides her eyes into a higher dimension, and they wander.

* * *

><p>...<p>

_To be continued._


	3. Artemis versus Family

That's how they find Artemis, almost by accident.

M'gann stops and shakes her head. "It's this door," she says. "But..."

"But what?" Robin asks. Wally examines the door, a flat piece of unfinished wood, a little warped in the frame.

"Well, it's shadowed, of course it's shadowed," Megan stumbles over the words. "But it's just so _bright_. I mean, it has the potential to outshine the sun. But it's hidden."

"Superboy?" Wally guesses, stepping out of the way. It's Robin's turn to open the door.

The younger boy lays a hand on the door, and Wally watches carefully. "Oh," Robin breathes. "Oh, _Artemis_."

And like the name is a password, the door creaks open all on it's own.

_Creepy_, Wally doesn't say.

They step into the entrance hall of a mansion. It's dark and empty and foreboding, and chill hangs in the air like cobwebs, ready to choke and strangle.

"Split up?" Robin suggests.

"No!" Megan and Wally both say, horrified. But, of course, Robin's already gone. So they look at each other, and Wally moves to take her hand. She grips his tightly, and draws comfort from his warmth.

"Robin might be used to creepy Gotham criminals, but I'd rather stick together," he says, and she shivers and agrees. They wander the bottom floor, because it's a pretty sure bet Robin went high.

The house is empty. Everything's covered in a dust that sticks to items and to hands and to the back of throats. "Is that...?" Wally asks, concentrating.

"Yes," M'gann whispers. "I hear bells."

* * *

><p>Robin <em>had<em> gone high, actually, working on the assumption that, like Wayne Manor, bedrooms would be on the second floor. He floats down corridors like a wraith, silent, not touching anything, barely stirring the air in his passing.

It's how he hears the noise. To the left, and further up. The door's locked, but that's never stopped him before, and it surely won't now.

He almost trips over her because she's huddled with her back to the door. She doesn't look, only feels the door swing open, and she scrambles forward, lurching to her feet to run.

Where she thinks she's running to, he has no idea, but he tackles her anyways. She bucks him off, and she's older and taller and stronger, but he's used to that.

He pins her, and it's awkward and it hurts his knee, but still. Robin says, "It's okay."

She spits at him and snaps, "Liar!"

"No, he says, and flips his hold so she can see his face. "No, it's okay. We don't hate you. We don't fear you, we don't want to hurt you; _we don't hate you."_

She calms a bit, and he leans down so he can pretend to not see the tears. "We, I, we know about you, about your family, your history, and we _don't care_. We don't care. You're team now, Artemis. You're team, and we can be your family, if you let us."

He sits up, letting her go a bit. She lays in the same place, not moving, not blinking, ad he sighs. "You're going to have to choose. You know that. I know that. But we're not going to force you into it, never. And we'll be there, no matter what happens. We won't let him hurt you, okay? We'll catch you; we won't let you fall."

He stands, offering her a hand up, and Megan and Wally appear in the doorway. "It's difficult, I know it is, but I'm asking you to trust us. Not all of us, not all at once. But give us the chance to show you?"

"I dunno what's going on," Wally says, "but I trust you. We're a team, right? Like family."

And Artemis breaks, because Robin can lie with a smile, but Wally really, really can't.

Wally is there to catch her, just as promised and Megan gathers her up into a hug. Robin just kind of twitches off to the side. Words, he can do. Touching, not so much.

She cries herself out in the arms of her teammates, and M'gann hums a Martian lullaby. It's ever so soothing, echoing in her head and heart, and it helps.

"Thank you," she says, and hiccups. Normally, she's stronger than this. Normally, she can be fine. But this isn't real, right? So maybe, just this once, maybe she doesn't have to strong.

Maybe she doesn't have to be alone.

But this isn't real, and maybe they'll all forget it upon waking. But that's okay, she thinks, because she won't forget. She'll always have this memory of friendship, at least.

It's enough. It'll have to be.

She wipes her eyes, sniffles a bit, and stands up. Her legs are a bit shaky, but they hold her. "Where are we, anyways?" she asks.

They all see through that to the diversion it is, but it's still a valid question. M'gann explains all about mindscapes, Robin hits the high points of the enemy, and Wally just nods along.

"Superboy," Artemis breathes when they're done. "Kaldur."

"Yes," Megan says. "We must find them."

Artemis takes a deep breath. "Okay, then. Let's go."

They step out of the room, and into the Place-Between.


	4. Conner versus Expectations

When he opens his eyes, it takes him a second to realize that he actually has. It's just as dark as the inside of his eyelids.

There's a rustle, and he sits up to see Batman, somehow both a shadow and clearly visible.

"Where am I?" he asks, then puts a hand to his head. There's this buzzing in his skull, familiar and strange, setting him on edge. "Where are the others?"

Batman stares at him for a second, and turns to Black Canary, who's suddenly next to him. "Superman was right," he says to her. "It's just an imperfect copy."

Black Canary nods, and says, "Yes, it seems that way. What should we do with it, then? Too dangerous to let it stay here."

Batman gives him one last, lingering look, and says, "Get rid of it."

Superboy stares at the dark patch that Batman's faded into, and says quietly, desperately, "Don't call me an it."

Black Canary cocks her head at him, laughs, and also turns around and walks into darkness.

"Don't call me an..." but there's a more pressing need, a more pressing desire. "...Don't leave me alone," he whispers, but the black is oppressing and heavy, squelching his voice.

The dark closes in.

"You weren't strong enough," someone says, and Robin slides around the corner of nothing, fluid and graceful and hunting.

"You weren't fast enough," Kid Flash, Wally, adds, and he's laying on the ground, limbs at awkward angles, and there's blood on his suit and on his face and in his mouth, but he's smiling so happy that it hurts.

"You couldn't fly," Kaldur says, eyes accusing, sitting right across from him. "If you could fly, you could have saved her."

"What?" Superboy asks. "Saved who?" He doesn't question that his teammates are here, or the way they appear, and he knows their words for truth.

"I needed a hero," Megan says, and he averts his eyes, because what she's become makes bile climb up his throat. "I needed Superman, and you're not him."

"Just a burden," Artemis says, gaunt and pale but still too pretty. "We should have left you in the lab."

He tries to say _I'm sorry_, but he trips over his dry tongue and chokes on the words, and by the time he looks back up, he's alone again.

Being alone is almost worse.

But then the shadows start murmuring, a susurrus in the distance, full of clicks and beeps and coming ever closer, until he's back where he began, sitting on the floor of the lab he was created in.

He stares at his tube, and lets the static in his head drown out his thoughts.

The door hisses open behind him. "How did it get out?" Desmond's familiar voice says.

Heavy footsteps, and it's the gold-helmed Guardian next to him. "This thing belongs in a cage!" he hisses, and Superboy scoots back out of range, then wonders why he did. He keeps going, until he hits someone's legs with his back.

"Here," says Superman above him. "Let me help you catch it."

He instinctively scrambles up and away, turning to face Superman, who aims a punch at his face.

"Stop!" he yells, which has all the effect of a piece of paper in front of a bulldozer. He catches the hit with his face, and hits the ground.

And that's when the anger bubbles up, dark and ugly, from that bit of him that is all to human. "It's not my fault," he growls, and punches back, but Superman just floats up and out of range, silently taunting the boy about how he can't fly.

Superboy yells wordlessly and jumps upwards anyway, only to hit the ground, again, harder, and it's really hard to think through the buzzing in his head. It's like trying to swim through corn syrup, or molasses, or ambient gel. It's like...

Oh. It's like _that_.

And suddenly, everything makes more sense, so he launches another assault on Superman, who laughs at him and tells him he's worthless.

"There are people counting on me," Superboy says. "I am not worthless to them." And he finally lands a knee in Superman's stomach, only the hero doesn't deign to feel it.

Superman backhands him and he goes flying off at an angle. He roars out the static-y sound in his head, and feels something shatter, and smiles grimly.

On the one hand, he wishes it hadn't worked at all. On the other, he's glad it was so easy.


	5. Kaldur versus Duty

Kaldur is drowning.

Literally.

He can't move, and his gills won't open, and he has the oddest sense of deja vu. He's panicking, just a little, because breathing is an instinct and he's never had to work out how to do it before. His lungs are burning and his vision is black around the edges, and he wants to swim, kick, reach, anything, but he _can't move_ and that's not even the worst part.

The worst part is how he brought his team here to help save his people, and instead, he's losing them all.

Tula gasps out a last breath, and her eyes flutter closed. Garth has her, holding her close, cradling her like Kaldur can't. Only Garth is bleeding out into the sea, pretty puffy clouds of red floating free and carrying his life with them.

Queen Mera flies by backwards, a saber in one hand and a ball of magic in the other. She's fierce and determined, blood on her gown and with a bulging belly full of her unborn child, and there is no honor in the way she sails right onto a sword from behind her.

He watches her face in slow motion, the shock and disbelief and fear, and he can't even open his mouth to scream.

The forces are swarming now, and the trap is sprung. A boulder falls from above, and pins Kid Flash, whose rebreather floats free. Superboy lands beside him, levering at the rock, and Robin flashes past, before catching a knife with his mouthpiece, and gasps in seawater.

Artemis is off to the side, and she's floating free and in a strangely familiar way. M'gann gets her under the arms and heads for the surface, trailing blood along behind her.

He tries to shout, tries to tell her it's too late, help someone who still needs it, but there are black spots in front of his eyes and his chest won't move and if he could just breathe-

His team trusted him to lead them and his friends counted on him for back-up and his king relied on him to protect the queen and everything's gone wrong, and they're all too far gone and he's failed in everything, and he's being selfish, trying to make his lungs expand while everyone else is dying.

And he blacks out, and the last thing he remembers are the screams.

* * *

><p>Kaldur is drowning.<p>

Literally.

He can't move, and his gills won't open, and he has the oddest sense of deja vu. He's panicking, just a little, because breathing is an instinct and he's never had to work out how to do it before. His lungs are burning and his vision is black around the edges, and he wants to swim, kick, reach, anything, but he _can't move_ and that's not even the worst part.

The worst part is how he brought his team here to help save his people, and instead, he's losing them all-

And then Superboy hurtles through the water, shattering through a plane Kaldur hadn't seen before. Superboy falls right _through_ his queen, dissipating the image like smoke. He passes through the boulder, and lands on the other Superboy and Kid Flash, who fall apart the same way.

And finally, Kaldur is able to move. He takes a deep, gasping breath, and tries to calm down.

"It's a dream," Conner says. "A mental projection. None of this is real."

And hearing that and seeing Conner very not-dead in front of him is exactly what it takes to disrupt the nightmare. The water forms into walls, and they're suddenly in a small, dark bubble of hard water.

But then the walls start closing in, and the light seeps away, so Conner picks Kaldur up and hurls him through the break in the mental plain. Kaldur instinctively tucks up into a ball, and bleeds out the momentum of his landing with a roll.

He comes up to his feet just in time to see Superman fly _through_ him. And then Batman, who fades out in the same mist, and Black Canary, and the team, including himself.

He looks around, but there's no one left and nothing looks familiar, so he heads back to the hole he came in through.

Somehow, it's on ground level, though there isn't any ground. Superboy is there, and he ducks enough to step through the hole.

A swirl of mist appears, forming back into Superman, kind of. Conner hurriedly ducks back out.

"What's going on here?" Kaldur asks.

"Not sure," Conner admits. "We're hiding out in each others' minds."

_What_ and _are you sure_ die on his lips, because really, the only important question right now is "Why?"

Conner scowls. "That guy we were fighting...he did something. Threw us into our fears, or something, not quite sure. I grew up in my head, though, so I recognized the feeling. I'm not psychic or anything, just...used to it. So I could feel that there was someone else around..."

"So you used your own fear to help you find it," Kaldur finishes. "And anything this powerful must be pretty specific. So as long as we're not in our _own_ minds, it has nothing to build on."

"Exactly," Conner says, and plops down to sit cross-legged. "So what do we do now?"

He wants to say that he doesn't know, but he's the leader, and Conner is looking at him with such trust that he can't bring himself to. He sits, as well, and for some reason, the hole remains on eye-level, though eye-level has changed.

He looks around, and he notices that he's in Superboy's room at Mount Justice. "This room has a door," he starts. "Does yours?"

Through the hole, he can just make out his old room at the Academy. Superboy nods that there is a door, which he expected. "Do I open it?" Conner asks.

Kaldur moves to his door, and says, "Yes."

In defiance of logic and physics, his door opens to face Superboy, who's opened the other door. Kaldur glances back, and he can still see the wall of his room through the hole, even though the door is across from him.

"Huh," Conner says.

"Let's go," Kaldur says, determinedly ignoring the paradox.

So they walk, and they walk. It's hard to tell if they're making any progress, or even moving in a straight line. They can't even tell how long they'd been walking.

Finally, Superboy stops. "This is getting us nowhere," he growls.

"True," Kaldur is forced to admit. "So let's think about this. We're in our minds, right?"

"No," Conner says. "We left them."

"But this isn't the real world, so we're still only mental entities. So...let's focus on on where we want to go, instead of just going."

He nods, but he's still frowning. "M'gann," he says abruptly. "She's psychic."

"Yes," Kaldur agrees. "Okay, so let's both focus on M'gann."

Superboy nods again, and closes his eyes, so Kaldur does the same.

_M'gann_, he thinks. _Nice, friendly, cookies, shapeshifting, green, hello megan!, teammate, family..._

"Look!" Conner says, grabbing his arm. Kaldur opens his eyes, and, yes, there's a door there. They both run towards it, and Kaldur takes a deep breath as Superboy opens the door.

* * *

><p><em>...<em>

_To be continued_


	6. Megan versus Fear

M'gann stops suddenly in place, and then grabs onto Wally's arm. She wraps her arm through his, and tugs him over until she can throw her other arm over Artemis's shoulders and plaster their sides together. She holds out a hand and says, "Robin, Robin, hurry, take my hand, hurry!"

He does, and she pulls them all in close. "Someone's opened my mind," she says. "Hold on."

"What?" Wally starts, but they're picked up and thrown down corridors, hurtling around corners and narrowly missing doors, until they burst through a sand-colored door, crying out at the impact.

They fall in a mess of limbs, made worse by the sand. "Is everyone okay?" Wally asks.

There are affirmatives from Robin and Artemis, but M'gann hugs herself and shivers.

"No," she says miserably. "We're in my mindscape now."

"How did we get here?" Robin asks. "We've never been drawn towards a mind like that before."

"I think someone else found the door," she explains. "Someone entering my mindscape would pull me back to it, and I wanted to make sure we didn't get separated."

"Good idea," Artemis says, and looks around. "So, who entered? And is this Mars?"

And that's when Conner and Kaldur fall on them, literally.

Wally zips out of the way, and Robin rolls. Megan floats up and back, and Artemis reacts by taking three massive steps back and manifesting her bow. The boys groan and twitch.

"What happened?" Conner asks.

Kaldur clutches his head, but stands up. "I think...we fell."

"Sorry," M'gann says. "I'm so used to keeping up my mental wards that they're instinctive, now. I never meant for you guys to get caught in them."

Artemis helps Conner up, and he brushes her off, though Kaldur accepts Robin's help. "So if this is Megan's mind, then where's her fear?"

Robin smiles. "Oh, good, you guys figured it out."

"Conner did," Kaldur admits, and Conner snorts.

"I know the feel of metal meddlings," Superboy says, brushing off the last of the sand.

And then a shriek tears through the air and their heads, and they hear it as much as feel it. It _hurts_, and hands over ears doesn't help.

And then the landscape starts to move. What everyone took for giant rocks stand up, poke out stilts, and start moving. The motion is awkward and lumbering, but surprisingly fast. And the sound keeps going.

"What the heck are those?" Wally asks, voice high and edging higher.

"I told you!" Megan shouts, taking deep gulping breaths. "My fear!"

"You said spiders!" Wally shouts back, already running, left and right and zig-zig-zagging. "You said _spiders,_ not giant creepy eat-your-face monsters!"

"Shut up and get to that outcropping!" Kaldur yells, his voice carrying well on the wind.

They stumble and scatter, dodging rocks that aren't rocks, and a few that are. It's a few minutes before they reconverge on the high rock ledge Kaldur had pointed to, and they crouch behind the meager cover, gasping for breath in the thinner air.

"Those are not spiders," Artemis says after a second.

"These _are_ spiders, Martian spiders. They fold in their legs and pretend to be rocks, see? They're terribly patient, and they wait for their prey, so they hate to be cheated of it. And they're not just carnivores, they're psychovores. They get into your head and nibble out all the thoughts and dreams, and pull at your soul with their sticky fingers until it hurts so nice that you can't scream anymore..."

And no one has anything to say to that.

Finally, Robin says, "Okay. Weaknesses? Or should we just not get caught?"

M'gann shudders, and looks a little terrified and lot miserable. "We just really need to get out of here," she says, barely audible over the hunting screams from the creatures.

"Right," Kaldur says. "Out, we can do that. How do we get out?"

"The Place-Between?" Artemis offers, glancing over her rock.

"No," M'gann says, "I couldn't get us there safely. I'd need to concentrate, and..."

"Right," Conner says. "So let's find the door."

She slides him a surprised glance and says, "Door?"

"Every other mind has had a door; yours must, too. So let's find it."

Artemis sneaks a look over the ledge, and jerks her head back down double-quick. "You might not have noticed, but we've got a _whole planet_ here! How are we gonna find a single door?"

"Split up?" Robin suggests, dipping a hand into his utility belt.

"No!" Megan and Wally say in unison, but Kaldur nods slowly.

"We're going to have to," he says. "We've got too much ground to cover. But in pairs, at least, and constant communication. Wait, M'gann, can you link us up here?"

She gulps. "Well. Technically, yes, I could, but I won't. Remember how the spiders eat brains? It would be like putting up a giant sign saying, 'Free buffet!' Very bad idea."

"Great," Wally moans. "I'm never gonna be able to look at a spider ever again."

Robin smacks him gently on the back of the head. "Focus," he warns.

"Ow! I am, I am focused! So there's always been a door, right? But it can blend in, too?"

"What?"

Kid Flash winces and kicks over a stone on accident, and there's a mad, desperate scramble for the next outcropping up.

"No, look, it's always in a place where it makes sense to have a door, right? But, like, not always a door-door, like Rob had," Wally pants. He's getting tired, and is a little bit frustrated because he's having trouble communicating his idea properly, and, oh, yeah, a whole lot terrified.

The rest shake their heads, because they weren't in Robin's minds, but M'gann nods and Robin says, "Oh, yeah."

"So," Wally continues at slightly-faster-than-normal speed, "It could be a cave or a historic door-structure or anything, really, right?"

M'gann gasps, and says, "The vault!"

Kaldur is inclined to ask about this vault, but the scrabbling sounds of spider legs are growing closer, and the only important question is "Where is it?"

"Oooh, uh, this way!" she says, pointing left, and Kaldur says, "Three-"

"-Two-" Conner counts,

and "-One!" They shout in unison, and the team breaks cover yet again, heading west around the mountain, and hopefully, to safety.

"How far?" Robin calls to M'gann, who's a few feet off the ground.

"A mile," she answers, "Maybe two..."

"Shit," Artemis says numbly. "This is gonna _suck_."

"Shut up and keep running!" Kaldur yells, and then, "KF, Superboy, get there as fast as you can, and get that door open!"

"On it!" Kid Flash responds, and takes off.

Conner says, "Arrrrgh!", or something like it, and he leaps and he's gone.

And then Robin darts away, further up the mountain. Kaldur is about to call out for him to rejoin the gang, but he drops a handful of capsules that explode into smoke, and the spiders shriek louder and head for that.

"Cowabunga!" He calls, and leaps off the side of a cliff.

Megan yells wordlessly, and veers right to catch him. He holds up his arms, and she snags his hands, putting a lot of pressure on his shoulders. He winces, then smiles up at Megan. "Thanks for the lift!" he says, and she dips close to the earth, setting him down at running speed.

"Robin!" Aqualad calls in frustration.

The Boy Wonder just sends him a thumbs up, and they save the rest of their breath for running.

And then they can see a door, vast, carved into a cliff face on the next mountain over. Conner looks insignificant by it, straining to get the left side open farther than a crack. Wally's on it, too, pushing with all the speed he can muster, but the door really is that heavy.

"It's the vault," Megan says. "Long ago, when we had a civil war, the green Martians locked the white Martians in here and it was meant to stay closed for all time..."

Kaldur makes a leap of logic, and says, "This isn't the real thing; it's only in your mind! They're not opening the actual vault!"

"Right," Megan says, and swallows, but suddenly Conner and Wally are making much more progress.

And then the ground quakes, and a giant limb, red as the dust, lands between Megan and Artemis.

"Go!" the archer screams, but she's tiring, just a little.

Conner is waiting at the door, but Wally heads for them, and scoops Artemis up. "I gotcha," he says, and passes through the door and into blackness. Kaldur waves Conner through next, because they need to get as many of them out as quickly as possible now.

The limb lifts, and two others come down. The body is lowering itself, and Megan is babbling, "Watch out for the web, it's a paralytic, and the saliva is a paralytic hallucinogenic, and also the fangs are venomous, and-"

Kaldur reaches the door, but Megan is flying directly over Robin, who's almost there, dodging around the spider leg forest all around them, as more and more land every second.

"Go!" Robin says, but Kaldur is the leader, and that means he's responsible, and so he waits, reaching out a hand towards them, and one of the spiders makes a _vrrrrp_ noise and aims its spinneret, and Megan grabs Robin under the armpits and hauls ass through the door.

Kaldur grabs the edge of Robin's cape, and lets their momentum pull him along-

-as they fall, tumbling, into endless darkness.

* * *

><p><em>...<em>

_To be concluded_


End file.
